


Nightingale

by Farmboy



Series: Unfinished Business [6]
Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 13:18:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3069560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farmboy/pseuds/Farmboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set before 'Crichton Kicks', Chiana and Rygel were picked up by a giant 'Dyson sphere'-like superstructure in space populated solely by Nebari, after a long time escaping bounty hunters after the events of the Casino Planet. These Nebari are independent from the Establishment and have in many generations created a new home here aboard this former scientific vessel. Chiana meets old friends here who had found their way here almost a decade ago, but she refuses to believe there isn't something fishy going on beneath the surface. She knows Nebari too well; they won't give up their tricks. Indeed, when Chiana leaves Rygel alone he is captured, and to her knowledge, the old Dominar vanishes completely. Her search for the truth begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I like these potatoes,” the constable spoke. He pressed a small knife beneath his thumb, into the skin of the round yellow vegetable that fit neatly into the palm of his hand, and started peeling the skin off in clean round motions. He didn't eat the skin, he felt they were disgusting, but he'd slice small parts from the core of the vegetable and place it lightly on the bend of his tongue. He barely had to chew.

“We never had potatoes back home, you know. I don't know how old you are. You might be too young to even remember.”

“I remember.”

His partner stared at him. It's not in a Nebari's nature to frown. Their faces lack the muscles needed to perform such an act. He simply waited until his partner picked up on his non-verbal gesture. To just stand there and babble and eat while a man had just died at the very spot he was standing, it was disrespectful.

They were standing in a puddle of his blood for crying out loud.

“You should've eaten in the elevator.”

“No, you don't get it. I've got heartburn and acid from here to northwest station.” The constable massaged his throat. “The potatoes help with my stomach cramps. And every time I ride those damn elevators I get sick.”

“You didn't get sick this morning.”

“Because I didn't eat this morning. Hence the potatoes.”

His partner sighed and looked over the crime scene again.

“I heard they're running out of those potatoes soon, since we're leaving the system.”

“No! Can't we stay a little bit longer?”

“You're going to have to get used to those stomach cramps.”

“Frell that.”

“It doesn't help that you're eating them raw. You're supposed to cook them, you know.”

 

****

 

She remembered her face well, which made it easier for Chiana to find her in a crowd. Lenara was slim and frail, with a smile that treasured kindness above all else. At the dinner table she'd been polite and quiet, and even now, while she was shopping for foods in the market street and wandering from stall to stall in the artificial morning light, Chiana feared revealing herself to her so suddenly might frighten her away.

She remembered when she was starving, she and Bellon used to throw breadcrumbs at flocks of birds to draw them nearer. She'd sit perfectly still in the center of a city square, in the shadow of silent statues of long dead regents and kings, and lured birds closer with stale bread. That's how she learned patience. That's how she learned to set traps. The birds would get caught in the sticky goo they planted, which kept them from flying. Or even without it, she'd jump them and grab them with her bare hands. Bellon taught her how to do that, not Nerri. Nerri never explained things. He just did them, and if you didn't keep up he'd get impatient and angry and would take it from you so he could do it better. He was too impatient to even learn to do his laces.

Lenara was like a bird, like a bird with a wounded wing. So much like Bellon to want to patch her up, mend her wing, and put his little songbird in his own little cage. Some people need a cage. You can't help that. It's their choice. Chiana just wanted to be free.

When Lenara finally caught her eye Chiana waited for her to find her at the end of the street, hiding in borrowed rags that smelled like Zhaan. Chiana was polite.

“Hey,” she said, shuffling her feet closer. “I wanted to thank you for the other day. For the meal you prepared for me and my friend. I'm sorry. I -I must've been very rude.”

A breath slipped through her empty smile. She swallowed, hoping it was enough, hoping it came over as honest as she wanted to be.

“It's okay....” Lenara said. It was nice to be forgiven so quickly. Yet there was a shadow cast on her face nonetheless. Something bothered the young woman. Maybe she didn't hold a grudge against her, but instead reserved that pleasure for her husband instead. Lenara was clearly nervous and didn't want to make eye contact. They were still strangers.

“Meeting Bellon again after so much time,” Chiana went on. “It opened up some old wounds. I didn't mean to drag you into that, into the mess that is my life...”

Chiana tried to laugh it off again, and took a deep breath.

“At least my friend enjoyed your meal. You haven't seen him, have you? My friend, the Hynerian?”

“No, I haven't.”

“He's missing,” Chiana nervously added.

The market vendors across the corner were marking them now, wondering with their eyes who this stranger was Lenara was talking to. Isn't that the woman they picked up drifting in the Pod? Isn't that the woman with the weird eyes? The girl that screamed at random people in the street? That's her, right? What was her name again? Chino? China? Chiana?

Chiana imagined their questions and hated them for staring.

“M-maybe Bellon knows where he is. If you tell me where he is, I could talk to him, and...”

She smiled.

“...apologize.”

Chiana visited the hospital this morning, but couldn't find him there. The music had finally died down atop the hilltop then, when the festival shut down for the night. If she looked ahead she could still see the tents and equipment standing there outside the city limits, waiting to be used again tonight for the end of the Festival of Tears. While the tired and inebriated had retreated back into their homes, Chiana had used the cover of night to sneak into the hospital. Then when Bellon didn't show, she made her way back atop the cliffside to their lovely rustic cabin, just in time to see the artificial light re-activated again. The horizon had lit up in beautiful colours. A mighty wind rushed into her face and through her earshells.

Slowly the city came back to life again, as if none of the festivities had ever happened, and the only one that hadn't slept was Chiana.

“Bellon's not at work,” Lenara said. “It's acually pretty sad. A colleague of his committed suicide this morning jumping off the hospital roof. I can't imagine what he must be feeling.”

“Yeah.”

Chiana didn't remember that happening, and she was there almost all morning.

“Suicide?”

“Bellon said he would be at the police station all morning to answer their questions. I hope that helps.”

“It does, thanks,” Chiana said.

Lenara apologized for not knowing about Rygel's whereabouts, but Chiana said it was okay, and they went their separate ways.

Chiana liked her, even though she always seemed a tad annoyingly sad. Chiana would've been curious to see Lenara lose her temper. Just once. To see the real her underneath.

Lenara's softness made Chiana feel stronger by comparison, harder, but that was an illusion. It had to be. Lenara had a life here, she had Bellon, and Chiana had an empty Pod. How does that compare? She didn't even have Rygel.

Tomorrow she was going to be just as alone, unless she acted now.

“Excuse me.”

She turned on the spot to face a stranger. Alarm bells screamed in the back of her mind.

“What?”

His eyes were pitch black. She'd never seen a Nebari smile like that before, in such a genuinely joyous manner. It was creepy.

“Are you Chiana?”

Chiana hesitated to answer him. Nobody knew her here. She was a stranger among strangers. Only Bellon knew her name.

“Who's asking?”

The white Nebari man cleared his throat. His waving black hair was perfectly parted to the left, but Chiana only had eyes for his right hand, which was slowly easing its way down to his side. He wore the colors of the Ochers, the law enforcement officers, on his bright orange uniform, but he didn't feel like one of them. She could tell because he didn't fear her. He wanted her.

Chiana eyed her surroundings. The market vendors weren't watching her anymore.

“What do you want?” Chiana asked. The man kept smiling.

She ran.

The man grabbed her arm and pushed her back. A hint of a weapon and she instinctively kicked it out of his hands. The move strained her thigh, however. She couldn't keep running now.

She yelled at him to let her go. His eyes enjoyed the violence. One push and Chiana took their fight into the middle of the street where they tumbled into a potato stall. The round vegetables scattered into the street. Her heart was pounding. He wouldn't stop.

Her legs barely carried her weight when she started running again. Short breaths turned to screams. In nothing short of a frenzy, she crashed into the circle of people that had gathered around them, pushing them aside for freedom, pushing against the blocked stream of gasping onlookers flowing in the opposite direction, bread spilling from their baskets.

She had no weapons and she knew she couldn't fight him off . The blue mark of his hand on her wrist told her he was stronger than he looked. There were too many side streets. Too many people.

They were coming for her, just like in their nightmares. Everyone would see it and she would be blind.

Then a blur of orange caught her. She ran straight into its arms. It touched her. And she saw its face. There were three of them now, wondering what was wrong, and she just screamed. And she never stopped screaming, even though the man pursuing her had disappeared.

Last thing she remembered was a flash of a syringe, feeling a sharp prick in the side of her neck, and succumbing to the sleep.

She hadn't slept that long since she was found unconscious and barely breathing, adrift in her wreck of a Pod. And no dreams too, which was a shame, because while she hated the nightmares she loved the dreams. For just a microt, they made her believe she wasn't living in an awful universe.

“Why am I here?”

The question resounded through the interrogation room, but the white Nebari investigator wouldn't even look her in the eyes yet. His long black hair he'd draped across his shoulders to blend with the black of his leather coat. The investigator's eyes were covered in black make-up, and he looked as tired as Chiana felt. He looked.... bored.

“Where were you last night?” A simple question. “Specifically.”

“At the Festival. Just like everyone else,” Chiana answered.

He wrote down her answers in blue ink. Upside down, Chiana couldn't make out his appalling handwriting.

“You arrived here six sundowns ago, is that correct?”

It was cold in here.

“Is this really necessary?” She couldn't believe she had to say this. “I was almost killed just now! In broad daylight! Aren't you even going to look into that? The guy was one of your people for crying out loud!”

“He was not.” He didn't even look up from his papers as he spoke, finishing his written sentence. “Whoever you described was certainly not a member of this law enforcement district.”

“He wore one of your uniforms!”

His gaze returned to her, and he cleared his throat.

“Don't change the subject. Did you, or did you not, arrive here six sundowns ago?”

Chiana was shaking, too distracted and claustrophobic to keep fighting. The room was too small and too dark for her liking. In her mind she was already punching him down and heading for the door.

“Could we do this somewhere else? I-I don't like it here.”

“Answer the question.”

Frell...

Digging her nails into the grain of the table, she relented.

“Yes. Yes, I think I was. I wasn't conscious for most of it.”

“You stayed at the hospital.”

“Yes.”

“Were you there this morning?”

There was a bite there Chiana hadn't expected. A sudden energy filled the room as he looked at her, waiting for her to answer a question he already knew the answer to. Chiana narrowed her eyes and realized he was waiting.

There had probably been security cameras hanging somewhere. Heat detectors. Motion detectors.

Whatever.

They knew. And they were going to use that against her. If she lied, they'd never let her out of this room again. But even if she told the truth, it wouldn't matter.

“You know what?” she said. “Frell you.”

When she got up from her chair the investigator followed her example, dumbfounded. He moved into her path, but didn't stop her.

“Don't do anything stupid, Miss Chiana.”

Chiana walked on.

“It's just Chiana. Just.... just Chiana.”

The sliding panel door opened as she swiped the control button with her wounded wrist. Suddenly, only a breath away from her face, there was Bellon, bearing down on her outside that door in silent indignation. She ignored him, knowing he'd follow her outside.

She wanted to feel betrayed by him for standing outside that door and watching her this entire time in complete silence, for not fighting for her, but deep down she was just too glad to see him again.

Chiana laughed. He always looked so funny when he was pissed off. He couldn't see it.

He used to laugh more. Before. When they were younger. The entire time she's been here, she hasn't seen him laugh once.

They shared an elevator back to the surface with their backs pressed against the walls. But Bellon couldn't keep quiet. He needed to know.

He didn't get time to ask his questions though. The moment he grabbed her arms a shadow came over her. The harder he held on the more she fought back, like trying to manhandle a waterfall, a berserk fly trapped in the cups of your hands.

“No...no..... NO!!

When he let go there was a moment where he didn't recognize her anymore. She was no longer in control. Chiana was gone.

She quietly came to her senses again, slowly regaining herself breath by breath. She tried to pretend he wasn't still there, that he was outside of this enclosed space, on another ship in orbit around the same planet. She tried to tell herself he didn't just do that.

“Don't touch me,” she said. “Don't.... don't touch me.”

Bellon swallowed.

“Did you kill Harrion?” he asked.

Chiana weighed her thoughts, but then she watched her friend. She saw him.

The roof opened up and the platform ascended into a clear blue sky. It rattled and screamed one final time before it juddered to a standstill at the center of a city square. There was a workshop nearby. She could hear saws and hammers and carpenters at work processing wood from the surrounding forests. Near the water, palm trees were slowly moving in the wind.

“No. I don't even know him.”

“Doesn't mean you couldn't have killed him.”

“I didn't kill him!”

“Don't lie to me. You were there this morning. We saw the footage. If you didn't do it, then who did?”

“Frell you.”

“This isn't looking good, Chiana. If they find anything, any trace at all that links you to his death, I'm not going to save you again. You hear me?”

“I don't need saving. I can take care of myself.”

“Clearly you can't. Just look at you! If there's one thing I know, Nerri should never have left you on your own.”

For a moment there they looked at each other, a fleeting moment blown away by the wind when Chiana walked up to Bellon and punched him in the face.

As he lay bleeding on the sidewalk, blue blood gushing from his nostrils, her smile turned sour.

“You know nothing,” she told him. “You're....you're frelling clueless.”

Then she kept walking. Chiana didn't need his help. Frell him.

“I'm not a child anymore.”

She didn't know where she was going, but she knew, from the microt she set foot on this superstructure, that there was something bad bound to be going on beneath the surface, and she was going to find it. If Rygel was going to be anywhere, that's where he'd be.

But there was one thing Bellon was right about: if she hadn't killed that guy, then who did?


	2. Chapter 2

“You have my friend. I know you have him.”

There was a water sculpture at the heart of the magistrate's office. Clear blue crystal oozing decorative water from the top through tiny transparent tubes, trickling down into a shiny white porcelain basin. Light bounded off its rim through the large open windows.

“Now, you're going to give me what I want...” Chiana spoke.

“Or what?” Diago said, spreading his arms wide, inviting Chiana to shoot him.

Holding up the gun to his face became a chore. The guards were just one button away, just outside the door.

Last time they spoke, they were on more courteous terms. This magistrate's representative had welcomed her to the Home Ship when she had awakened from her coma and promised her accommodations, food and even company, while all she did was make fun of his love of togas and sandals.

“Why did you bring a weapon?” he said. “You know they are illegal.”

“I just want to find my friend and leave. I'm sick of this place.”

Diago scoffed. “Why would you ever want to leave?”

She aimed her weapon a little higher this time.

“Look, I apologize personally for how the investigators treated you this morning. It was rude, it was not courteous. Nebari should never treat another Nebari like that.”

“Maybe they should hurl them off buildings instead?”

He frowned at her, like she told a bad joke.

“I don't take kindly to accusations. Such deaths are unacceptable. On this Home Ship we want to care for people. Whoever is responsible for your friend's death will be brought to justice, I assure you.”

“He wasn't my friend. I just want Rygel.”

“And we'll find him, don't worry. He's probably enjoying himself immensely as we speak. Not a care in the world. Because that's our job here. We want to care for you, Chiana. Let us care for you. I mean, where would you go?”

That's what Salis said. That's what they all said, every time they shocked her with that collar around her neck. That they were doing this to help her. Nebari never change.

“I'm going to give you ten microts, and if you don't tell me where he is, then....”

Chiana tightened her grip around her gun. She killed people before, but usually they were trying to kill her at the time. She stuck Salis with a knife so he would never shock her again.

“Chiana, put the gun down!” a female voice cried out. “What's wrong with you?”

 

Oona slammed the door shut, with the arm not holding her toddler. Her heels pounded the black and white tiles on the floor like a school teacher knocking on her desk for order and silence in a classroom.

“You look surprised. Bellon never told you about me, did he?”

Diago stepped aside, so his boss could get to her desk. With a kiss, she put down her child, and whispered in his ear for him to run along and play in the garden. He ran and disappeared out the long open windows, laughing.

“You think he came alone? Hardly anyone does.”

“You're here?” Chiana asked, taken aback. “You-You're the Magistrate?”

“His wife, actually.” Oona flashed her wedding jewel, hanging around her neck. It shone silver in the artificial light.

Compared to the children they were when they last spoke, this wasn't what Chiana pictured she'd look like nine cycles later. Oona looked... old. For someone still so young.The beautiful features of her youth had grown exaggerated. Her cheekbones were more pronounced, and she'd never worn her white hair in such a prim tight bun before. Her bulbous eyes would wander, keeping an eye out for her son playing in the garden, even though Chiana was still holding the gun in her hand.

“I'm sorry to hear about Nerri.”

Bellon told her.

“I never figured he'd leave you like that.”

The guard that had entered along with her came up to Chiana, waiting for her to deposit her gun into his open hand. Diago knotted his arms behind his back and turned his sole attention to Oona's words, with an annoying smirk on his face.

“You look great, Oona, but this doesn't change a thing,” Chiana spoke. “Where's Rygel?”

She sighed. “Maybe we should discuss this in private.”

“Well, maybe we should.”

“But I'm not an idiot. Give the gun to the guard, and you might get it back when we're done.”

“Might?” Chiana asked.

“You heard me. Those are the rules.”

They used to break the rules.

Chiana flipped her palm and pressed the pistol into the ash Nebari's hand. His red eyes watched her silently.

“Not in the trees!” Oona yelled at her son outside. “You're gonna fall and break something!”

With a disturbed but quiet plea for help, Oona asked Diago to watch her son, while she beckoned Chiana into a side chamber. The bright, open office was replaced by a dark, musty conference room, waiting to house maybe seven people on either side of a long black table.

“Close the door,” Oona said. She turned on two small lights in opposite corners of the room by slowly turning a round dial on the wall.

When she was sure they were alone, Oona smiled.

“You look like crap,” she said.

Chiana returned the smile. Memories flooded back to her of a more simple time, compared to the present, but she knew that between the past and the present, one of them had to be lying.

“you-You have a son,” she said, trembling. “I didn't think anyone would ever touch your ugly ass.”

She knew she'd hit a too personal spot when Oona looked away. Chiana meant to sound it as a joke.

“...without paying for it anyway.”

Adding that didn't help.

“I used to do a lot of things to survive,” Oona said. “Bad things. I don't have to anymore. I found a job. A husband. I found a calling.”

“Yeah?”

Oona made a lot of sounds, but they were just words. Chiana wasn't buying it.

“You can have that too, if you want. It's what your friend wanted.”

“Have what?”

From her pocket she took a small white ball, which, upon tapping twice, started glowing.

“It's called a Home Ship, Chiana,” Oona spoke. “When the pioneers started on their long voyage all those cycles ago, they knew they would never see their homeworld again. So they built a new one. Right here. A new home.”

“I've heard that story before.”

“I know you're skeptical. Always so frelling stubborn. But don't believe me. Believe your friend.”

When she pressed the glowing white ball at the center of the black table a message started playing. A familiar face became enlarged in a million little bits of holographic grain. Within a holographic frame, Rygel dictated his recording directly to the camera, almost as if he were in the room, speaking to them.

He was solemn. There was a wounded quality about him Chiana couldn't quite place. The shot had been tightly framed around him so she couldn't see where the recording had been made.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “They offered me a ship, so naturally I took it. If you feel abandoned, don't. You were a worthy partner in crime, Chiana. All things must end. Don't worry, I will find my own way. My own people. In time.”

“Why didn't you show me this earlier?”

“You're a tough girl to track.”

“As for my possessions on the Pod.... you can keep all of it. Do with it as you please. I won't need it where I'm going. This prison is no place for a Dominar! I'm off to reclaim my crown, but first I must find it. Farewell, Chiana. You were the closest friend I had on Moya, along with Crais.”

Chiana looked over at Oona. Not a muscle in her face moved.

“I hope you will find your peace here. A future I could never have. These Nebari want to help you, Chiana. Like they helped me. Let them. I'll tell you again, don't look for me! Goodbye!”

The screen crashed to black, then Chiana watched Oona carefully remove the orb.

“That's it? He's gone.”

“Your friend saved your life. So we saved his.”

“And now what? You just expect me to stay?”

“We did.”

Oona dialled the lights back down and preceded Chiana back into the hall. The guard was still waiting for them by the water basin, like a mountain with legs. As promised, he gave her back her gun.

 

“You're not the first to have had trouble adjusting their first time here, you know. There are plenty more girls like you, who hopped a freighter to get here, hoping to find the promised land. And we try to help everyone of them, just as they helped me when I first got here. What I'm trying to say is, you're not alone, Chiana. We know how it feels.”

Chiana was told there was a group of new arrivals meeting up every day here in the city. To help her integration, Oona assigned her a roommate to live with, in the Rygel's old suite that was now given to her. It would help her, they said.

“Be more social,” Oona said. “Just try.”

“Yeah.”

“I don't think you quite get what we're offering you here.”

“Maybe I will if you stop telling me about it.”

“Bellon's holding a dinner party tonight, the last evening of the festival,” Oona added cautiously, watching Chiana holster her pistol. “I want you to be there, okay? It'll be just like old times.”

Chiana knew the discussion was over when Diago returned from outside carrying Oona's son. He immediately took up all of her attention, while the rat-faced glorified secretary showed Chiana to the door.

“I hope you found the answers you were looking for.”

He didn't even smile.

The guard escorted her to northwest station, where Chiana was put on a train downtown. She wondered how many girls there really were. How many people had fled to find this floating around in the middle of nowhere. So many Nebari, so far away from home.

She was told her new roommate would be on the same train. Chiana waited, and kept on thinking she'd spotted this new girl, but every time the girl in question left at the next station. More and more people followed, until there were only a few people left aboard the train. She was motras away from her Pod by now, so far removed.

And all the while Chiana couldn't stop mulling over a few simple phrases in her mind, trying to figure out what it meant. It was driving her mad.

“Hello.”

She'd startled her. Chiana hadn't even seen the girl move towards her, and then she sat down in the seat in front of her with her bare legs crossed. Her long hair was even whiter than her face, and long enough to be sat on. She looked young enough to be frightened of girls like Chiana, except she wasn't. She just looked curious.

“Are you Chiana? The Magistrate's office told me you were assigned to be my roommate. Said we could help each other.”

The girl stopped smiling the moment Chiana pulled out her gun.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up,” Chiana said.

The girl didn't understand.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Chiana laughed.

“I know what you want. I've seen your kind before.”

She leaned forward, moving the gun closer to the girl's small body.

“Please don't hurt me. Please...”

“But it's okay,” Chiana went on. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes scanned her target top to bottom. “'Cause that makes things easier.”

The girl swallowed, staring down the barrel of a gun. She put her hands together and pressed her fingertips against her pursed lips, eyes full of terror.

“I can leave,” she said. “I won't tell the Magistrate....”

“I know. I know you won't tell anyone,” Chiana said. “D'you know how I know?”

A single tear rolled down the girl's cheek. There was no-one else to catch sight of the gun. No ticketmaster. Any passengers still left aboard the train were on the either side of the cabin, smoking their little purple sticks.

The slightest disturbance in the track caused Chiana's hand to wiggle. Still, she would not waver.

“I mean, d'you know how I know? To what gave you away?”

She tried to get up, but Chiana pushed her right back down again.

“It was you wasn't it. This morning in the market-place...”

The girl pleaded for her life again. Her long white locks fell across her face.

“Please let me go!”

“I'm going to lay out some simple rules and you're going to listen. Break my rules and I'll break you. You got that? YOU GOT THAT?!”

The girl nodded.

Prison, he'd said. Find his crown. Except Dominars don't wear crowns. And his closest friend? What a joke. Rygel didn't have friends. Find me, he said. A future he won't have. Look for me.

He must've been taken captive somewhere. Captured alive.

The Nebari wanted to help her, he'd said, just like they helped him. No, this wasn't over. He never left. He was right here somewhere inside the Home Ship.

The girl quivered, digging her nails into the leather seats.

“Help me find the Hynerian,” Chiana said. “And I'll lead you to Crichton. It's him you want, right?”

She didn't care about the girl crying. She didn't care about the girl's hyperventilating breaths.

“You won't get anywhere without him. You'll need the two of us. If you kill me now, you'll never find Crichton, I promise you that. And torture won't work on me.”

Chiana waited.

“Find the Hynerian and all three of us will leave this place together. Yeah? Do we have a deal?”

The girl opened her eyes. Panicked, she looked all over the booth, the adjacent seats, the ceiling, the darkness underneath the skin of the Home Ship that rushed by them outside the train window at immense speeds. Then she looked straight at Chiana, her face red and flustered.

She turned her neck. Her eyes turned glazed. A voice that seemed to come from deep down within her, with monstrous breath, a primordial predator's guttural growl, hoarse from blood and death and mutilation, spoke to her in simple terms.

“Agreed.”

 

TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
